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October 2003 |
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October 30, 2003 - We went to war to stop the Iraqi regime from using its weapons of mass destruction. We went to war because it had become clear that Hans Blix and his cadre of UN weapons inspectors could not break through the Iraqi ring of secrecy surrounding the Iraqi weapons programs. We went to war to snuff out what the President called the "gathering danger" posed to this nation; its friends; and Iraq 's neighbors. We went to war; raced to Baghdad ; toppled the Hussein regime's statues; and made Iraq safe for democracy. Now, six months later, having achieved regime change in a few short weeks we have created a new paradigm in the Middle East . The Secretary of Defense says that we lack the "metrics" to determine whether or not the United States is winning the war on terrorism. But we should not worry. The President has found the metrics. They were there all the time. It is just that we neither recognized the measuring tape nor understood how to use it. The President has cut through the fog of war and found the proper measure...click here for entire article October 29, 2003 - As the Abraham Lincoln steamed to and fro along the San Diego coast someone put up the big banner to serve as the backdrop for the President's speech declaring victory in what his writers called the Battle of Iraq. The carrier's course was carefully plotted to keep the range of hills along the coastline behind the cameramen and their lenses pointed at the vast Pacific. It was a carefully staged triumphant moment to etch in the mind of the electorate an image of an heroic President. It was an exciting example of the image-makers' art. Six months later the central figure of the triumphal tableau is trying to distance himself and the mission has proved to be far from accomplished and the Battle of Iraq far from over. Since the Commander-in-Chief was a passenger in the copilot's seat on the 30 mile hop to the carrier's deck their have been more "bumps in the road" than the administration can ignore and the cold pack shoveled into the potholes hasn't improved the surface. The President is trying to sell us on the idea that the well coordinated attacks on the American occupation this past week demonstrate the "good progress" he is making on the ground in Baghdad . Senator Daschle's wry comment was particularly apt when he said that he did not know how much of this "good progress" America can stand...click here for entire article October 27, 2003 - On Sunday night an improvised rocket launcher spewed air to ground missiles at the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad disturbing Asst. Defense Secretary Wolfowitz' sleep. Rousted from his rest Wolfowitz held an improvised press conference to proclaim that America would not be deterred from completing the mission that the President had declared had been accomplished on May 1 st . Press accounts claimed that 15 had been wounded in the attack. One as yet unnamed American Colonel was killed. During the succeeding 24 hours three more American soldiers were killed by explosions, one at the headquarters of the International Red Cross. The 4 deaths together with the death of a Spanish soldier on Saturday pushed the count of coalition dead in Iraq past 400 on the eve of the holiest of Moslem religious observances, the Holy Month of Ramadan...click here for entire article They seek him here. Sir Percy (Leslie Howard in the 1935 movie classic) recited that bit of doggerel to throw the French envoy, M. Chauvelin (Raymond Massey) off the track of his quarry. Well the Bush administration has not one but two "demmed elusive" quarry after which the Pentagon's Chauvelins are on the hunt from the mountain passes of Pakistan to the twisting alleys of Tikrit. Osama and Saddam seem every bit as elusive as Baroness Orczy's protagonist and their organizations as impenetrable as was the Pimpernel's League. Their taunting messages are not the ponderous poesy of the effete Sir Percy Blakeney but strident threats, warnings and calls to resist. America 's 2003 Chauvelin, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, admits that despite the Defense Department's deployment of overwhelming force we don't know whether we are winning or losing the President's wars on terror. The candor is refreshing if the message is not...click here for entire article October 16, 2003 - This morning the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1511 by a 15-0 vote. That is a most important provision in that it is the first international recognition of the Governing Council as the legitimate government of the State of Iraq. In giving its representative a seat at the table neither the Arab League nor the Organization of the Islamic Conference has gone that far.> today Iraqi sovereignty rests not in the CPA and J, Paul Bremer, but rather in the Iraqi Governing Council. Under the UN Charter that determining provision has the force of international law by which the United States is bound..click here for entire article October 15, 2003 - Back when the Congress lobbied mightily by the Knights of Columbus and American Legion spoiled the meter of the secular Pledge of Allegiance by inserting the parenthetical "under God" into "one nation, indivisible" I opposed it on artistic grounds. Being a high school student I demonstrated my discontent by refusing to speak those words whenever I was called upon to take the pledge. In the half-century since I have continued that practice, not out of ideological purity but from a decent regard for the author and the elegance of his original language. But as I consider the pith of the arguments that will be made before the Supreme Court, and especially now that America is entering into its own self-imposed Babylonian Captivity, I recognize that there was a more basic, if unconscious, reason for my discomfort than artistic nicety. At the core of the uniquely American concept of individual liberty is freedom – freedom from the imposition of an approved orthodoxy whether it be religious or political. It is the freedom of each American to choose his private thoughts and to utter public speech to express them. With that freedom comes another – the freedom to choose to remain silent and to be protected in making that choice. That freedom is part of my own as well as America’s heritage and one that is most precious...click here for entire article October 14, 2003 - On Friday Moktada al-Sadr the 30 year old
son of cleric killed by the Saddam regime declared a new government for Iraq
appealing to Shiite Moslems and Iraqis
poor for support. 10,000 Iraqis demonstrated in Najif in support for his declaration.
Two US soldiers were killed on Saturday in the Sadr City section of Baghdad,
the Shiite section of the Capitol. The ambush of the Americans followed shortly
on a suicide car bombing of an Iraqi police station with a casualty count of
8.
This morning another car bombing hit the Baghdad Hotel in the city’s center. US and CPA officials and contractors have made the hotel their headquarters. The preliminary casualty count is 6 confirmed dead and at least 10 injured. The Baghdad rumor mill has it that the CIA was had taken over the hotel as its Baghdad. Whether the rumor is true or not it is widely believed in Iraq and makes the hotel a prime target...click here for entire article October 12, 2003 - It was 1972 and I was in the middle of a congressional campaign. After weeks of not seeing our families on weekends the candidate declared a Saturday off. My wife and I went to the movies. It was a Robert Redford vehicle, The Candidate. It was the story of an unlikely political new-comer taking on an incumbent Senator and pulls it off. At the end of the movie the Redford character, the new Senator-elect, turns to his campaign manager played by Peter Boyle and with a look of mixed puzzlement and apprehension asks, “Now what do we do?” That is the question that Governor-Elect Arnold has to be asking this morning. Well, I have some suggestions. There is little that you can do, Governor, to address the California deficit. You are hemmed in by the aptly named Proposition 13 on the revenue side and your new constituents are not going to tolerate reductions on the expenditure side. You have to rely on the same factors that plunged your state into the fiscal toilet to pull you out of it – the national economy. You can’t control it, you can’t direct it, so level with the people of California and ask them to join you in prayer. It can’t hurt...click here for entire article October 10, 2003 - 9 dead Iraqis and 40 wounded at a Baghdad police station; a Spanish diplomat shot down outside of his home; 3 US Soldiers killed in two separate ambushes – one in Baqouba and the other in Baghdad’s Sadr City – and that is just the product of 24 hours of life in Occupied Iraq. The victims of the attacks are what Paul Bremer calls “bumps in the road” and the President calls “great progress” as he campaigns to get public support for borrowing yet another $87 Billion to pay for his un planned Iraqi guerilla war. Meanwhile, in America’s other war – the ignores and forgotten war in Afghanistan it is revealed that a detachment of well armed Taliban fighters attacked and defeated the Afghan police in the Village of Barmal near the US Base at Shkin. 8 Afghan police were killed and the remaining 5 skedaddled after a 5 hour battle. The Taliban held control of the village for more than a month, according to Chicago Tribune writer Vanessa Gezari who interviewed the Barmal police commander. More “bumps in the road” demonstrating that the writ of the Karzai government is largely restricted to Kabul and there it runs only tentatively...click here for entire article October 10, 2003 - Before the race for Baghdad began on March 20th the Secretary of Defense was told that the occupation of Iraq would require a force of 300,000; would cost at least $100 Billion a year; and the duration of the mission would be not less than 5 years. Rumsfeld advised the President that those estimates were wildly pessimistic. On April 9th the Army rolled into Baghdad with surprisingly light casualties; toppled the statues of Saddam for the imbedded television cameras; while Baghdad Bob denied the chaos closing around him. To all appearances the Battle of Baghdad had been won and the stage was set for the President’s triumphal flight to the deck of the Abraham Lincoln to declare the Second Iraqi War was over. Except that it was not over. Six months later Saddam is still at large and apparently directing the continuation of the war that America launched in a new guerilla phase. While Donald Kay scoured the countryside searching for weapons of mass destruction turning up only a reference vial of botulism toxin and what he called evidence of an intention to re-acquire unconventional weapons for his pains, it is the Iraqi arsenal of conventional that has been killing Americans, cooperating Iraqis and our allies...click here for entire article October 8, 2003 - War in Iraq is a charitable endeavor at least that is the proposition that the Bush Administration is apparently now trying to sell to the United Nations and the American public. The message is to give now and to give until it hurts. The Congress is asked to borrow another 87 Billion Dollars to go with the 79 Billion that it already borrowed to finance the war in Iraq. Believe me that is giving until it hurts. When the war started it was described as a preemptive defensive war aimed at the imminent threat that Saddam Hussein was about to use his weapons of mass destruction against the United States and Britain. As it had promised in November the United States went back to the United Nations and asked for a Security Council resolution authorizing the United States and our British cousins to launch the war. When Anglo-American diplomacy was unable to induce the Security Council to wield a rubber stamp for Mr. Bush’s war, the American draft resolution was withdrawn without a vote and the war went on...click here for entire article October 7, 2003 - The semi-professional Clark detractors, both those who profess loyalty to one of the other 8 men who seek the Democratic nomination for President and those Bush loyalists who spend their energy trying to get Democrats to nominate the weakest of all possible candidates, have taken to referring to General Clark as “Crazy Wesley”. They point to an offhand remark he made about time travel and his confidence that the inventive curiosity of humankind will someday let us realize velocities greater than the speed of light. They suggest, and none too kindly, that the General is spinning off in a fantasy and moving at warp speed, after all E=MC squared is the limit. Well his remarks rang a bell with me as well. It reminded me of something that I had read earlier in one of the popular scientific magazines I frequently read in the Doctor’s waiting room. I don’t remember which one but I did remark to myself that I had seen those comments before. Indeed I had, in a review of the latest edition of A Brief History of Time, a book by Dr. Stephen Hawking. For those readers who are not familiar with Stephen Hawking let me explain that he is the world recognized authority on theoretical physics and the quantum theory. When physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists speak of Hawking their voices are tinged with awe...click here for entire article October 7, 2003 - Robert D. Novak, like every citizen is presumed to know the law. In Novak’s case it is likely that the presumption is more than the formulation of the legal truism that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. The veteran conservative columnist was a DC fixture in 1995 when then Congressman Torricelli was accused of violating Title 50 Chapter 15 Section 421 of the US Code and joined the Gingrich led hue and cry to oust the NJ Democrat from the House Select Intelligence Committee. When Novak wrote his July 14th column blowing Valerie Plame’s cover he can be presumed to have actually known that the leak to him constituted a crime. There can be no doubt that when he subsequently identified the CIA cover company on CNN he knew precisely what he was doing. President Bush said yesterday, “This is a very serious matter, and our administration takes it seriously," He also said, "If anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker," One thing is sure, Robert D. Novak knows the leaker. It follows that even Attorney General John Ashcroft knows that Novak is the sure source for information as to the identity of the person who gave him the information that he published...click here for entire article October 6, 2003 - After nearly two years of unremitting failure the Bush Administration is finally acknowledging that the lack of a coordinated and comprehensive policy towards the two conquered provinces of the New American Empire has been disastrous. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisors whose previous service to the nation has been to whisper in the President’s ear and tour the Sunday morning talk shows with canned justifications for the Administration’s policy of the week, will take control of an “Iraq Stabilization Group” and be in charge of directing American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least that is what “senior administration officials” are saying in the leak de jour. It is clear admission that the Pentagon in Iraq and Foggy Bottom in Afghanistan have failed to follow successful military campaigns with effective, comprehensive plans to consolidate those military gains. In Afghanistan the fighting continues against the same enemies, Omar’s Taliban and Bin Laden’s guerillas. In Iraq we still take are being bled by the same enemy as when the war started with the “Decapitation Raid” on March 19th now reinforced by Islamist guerilla fighters slipping into Iraq from across the Moslem world....click here for entire article October 5, 2003 - The Bush Administration cooperation with its own investigation of its own breach of national security is memorialized in memos and public statements. Less public but frantic activity has also been set in motion. The all two familiar “slime and destroy” operation trying to paint Ambassador Wilson and his CIA Agent wife as Democrat activists continues apace with Robert Novak’s renewed attack on the couple. Not content with his earlier breach of CIA security in the July 14th column he compounded the damage by identifying the CIA front company that provided her cover in an interview with Judy Woodruff broadcast on CNN. The company is listed as Mrs. Wilson’s employer in the FEC database of contributions to the Gore primary campaign in 2,000. Both the Ambassador and his wife are listed as contributing $1,000 and, as required, her employer is listed as Brewster, Jennings and Associates. Novak, attempting to show that she was not an undercover agent, said “There is no such firm, I'm convinced, CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." Bush Administration officials confirmed to the Washington Post that Brewster, Jennings and Associates was in fact a CIA front and that Ms. Plame’s 1999 W2 forms listed the firm as her employer. The Prince of Darkness did not mention that FEC databases also listed a $1,000 contribution to the Bush primary campaign earlier that year. Wilson had acknowledged the contribution noting that the Bush contribution occurred “before South Carolina”....click here for entire article October 4, 2003 - Karl Rove is reported to have said that Ambassador Wilson’s wife was “fair game” in the political attack on the Ambassador’s public statements casting doubt on the Bush justification for a pre-emptive war against Iraq I suppose that when a candidate or public officer takes a public position, as for example holding himself out as a paragon of “family values” and morality, he makes members of his family “fair game” should their behavior stray from the values her espouses. Billie Carter was “fair game”. Edward Nixon was “fair game”. Ronald Reagan had his family embarrassments as did George Herbert Walker Bush. Neil Bush, with his Silverado Savings and Loan, was and is certainly “fair game”. Hillary Clinton made herself “fair game” as did Eleanor Roosevelt before her. But it is hard to see how the wife of Ambassador James Wilson became “fair game” when her husband spoke out...click here for entire article October 3, 2003 - The Bush Administration is asking Congress to take out a $600 Million loan for it. We should be asking what we are going to get for the money. How many first class teachers can you hire for $600 Million? How many textbooks could we buy? How many jobless Americans can be retrained for that money? How many airport security screeners could we keep on the job? But the borrowed $600 million won’t go for those purposes. The Administration proposes to spend it in Iraq – to add to the $300 Million already borrowed to fund David Kay and Company, the Administrations last and best hope to find the elusive weapons of mass destruction. What will we get for the money? Well Dr. Kay has answered that...click here for entire article October 1, 2003 - It is strange how things seem to repeat themselves. Thirty years ago it was the question posed by Senator Russell Baker of Tennessee, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Three decades later the same question is being asked, this time by the press and Presidential Spokesman Scott McClellan is fumbling the answer by trying to deflect the discussion. At the October 1st press briefing McClellan was asked directly when the President knew that an undercover CIA official had been outed and that the person who outed that undercover CIA official attributed it to senior administration officials. The question was repeated three times and each time McClellan danced away from answering it. Five times he was asked if Karl Rove denied saying that Ambassador Wilson’s wife was “fair game”. Five times McClellan parried with the questioner and then changed the subject without answering the question. Scott’s performance was a tour de force in evasion. ...click here for entire article |
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